This book's release in the pre-internet days prevents it from getting its deserved recognition. Erdman has written well-received books since the 1970s. Snappy dialog containing factual information about the world of high finance both educates and entertains the reader.

After reading Den of Thieves this books brings us over from reality to fiction by way of the Grisham / Clancy type drama and action of high finance and intrigue.
Beginning where Den of Thieves leaves off (in the real world) this takes us on a fast passed romp through start-up, cutting deals, leveraging coin, and turning up the heat to create a trading operation in the woods north of San Francisco.
The Willy Saxton character is perfect and handles the presure well.
This of course is not great literature, but it sure is a fast and great read. Books like this are like "Text Movies". They grab and entertain you.
If you like high finance, drama, and intrigue then this is it!

A masterfully written book. Even though I read the book almost 4 years ago, I still believe it's the best I have ever read. Mr. Erdman crafts a wonderful story about the world of high-finance. He writes about an area of life that few understand and makes it easy to comprehend. The characters are solidly depicted and the hero is even more realistic due to his flawed and checkered past. The flaws in the hero just make him more believable and his goal in the story just reinforces human nature that "even though you're down, you pick yourself up and start over"; (by any means necessary) just makes Willie Saxon's character that much more exciting and real. One can almost imagine being in the character's place. Some may even wish to be where Willie Saxon was. Paul Erdman's characters are always strong willed and powerful. Mr. Erdman's portrayal of a riches-to-rags-to-riches character makes the story that much better. A great plot. A must read. For me, it's a must read "again".

Charles Black, a former investment banker and a tough-nut chairman of the Fed quits his job in a struggle with the White House over rising interest rates. But he's persuaded to stay on for a while as a special envoy to represent the Fed at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Swiss-based institution that serves as the industrialized world's clearinghouse for payments and monetary information.

So imagine Black's rude surprise when he arrives in Basel, Switzerland for one of the BIS's regular monthly meetings. Instead of the warm welcome he had been receiving for the past four years as a Fed chief, he is arrested, jailed, and charged with using his exclusive knowledge of U.S. interest-rate moves to mastermind the most audacious insider-trading scheme ever.

Intrigued yet?

As the conspiracy begins to unfold, Black finds himself no more than a fall guy for a shadowy Sardinian financier, a conniving Swiss lawyer with a desk full of secret bank accounts, and the real inside trader--a corrupt president of the Swiss National Bank. In this mix of characters lies the potential for a Hitchcockian drama of a victim mixing it up with his tormentors as he tries to clear his name. The Set-Up journeys from San Francisco and Washington to Switzerland, Sardinia, and the wilds of Alaska, where the plot against Black falls apart.

On the good side, Erdman keeps things moving with his descriptions of shady Swiss dealings, and prison life. Big Swiss heads come off as men of impeccable social standing but a flexible moral character. That's an all-too-common shortcoming among the Swiss big-money set that Erdman seems to have studied closely during his life as a doctoral student and banker in Basel.

But this is also my minor grouse with the book that is supposed to be more of a thriller than a treatise on global finance. Expect a fair bit of digressions into the minutiae of international banking including an introduction to the innards of derivatives markets. Which was great for me personally, but these are in fact slightly piquing in terms of the novel's flow.

Nonetheless this is all worth the ride if you are in the market for a financially inclined thriller. Recommended.

I was a young GI in Germany in 1969 just learning to appreciate "the Trib." I remember one article that caught my eye: a young American banker working in Basel at the sub of a California bank was arrested for trying to corner the world cocoa market! He failed miserably, and in the process wiped out his employer's equity base. As if the young banker, named Paul Erdman, did not know enough about Switzerland already, he was to learn more, from many months inside a Swiss jail. I next noticed Erdman several years later. He had written a novel, "The Billion-Dollar Sure Thing." I read it and liked it, and later learned that he had begun his novelist's career in that Swiss jail. Erdman's subsequent novels have never disappointed. He is the master of the financial thriller, an unfortunately under-populated genre. "The Set Up," like all of Erdman's fiction, takes place largely in Switzerland. Charles Black, former Chairman of the U.S. Fed, is arrested at the Basel airport as he enters Switzerland. (Erdman reminds us, as he never fails to do, that Basel's airport straddles the Swiss/French border.) He finds himself in the maws of the Swiss power structure, comprised of a hundred or so rich and powerful Swiss men who are, in Erdman's eye, as amoral and as slimy as any in the world. No Swiss Heidi-types here. (Had Erdman been successful in cornering the cocoa market he would have been hailed, not jailed, by this group for furthering the cause of Swiss chocolate!) To divulge any more of the plot would be cheating. Suffice it to say, there is lots of (1)German- Swiss bashing,(2)Deus ex machina that stretches credibility, and (3)untranslated "Schwietzer dooch" and other languages. There is also a woman/mate of the male hero who is sharper than the hero himself. This theme is present in most Erdman novels. Erdman has produced eight novels in a quarter of a century, about one every three years. When I haven't seen one for a while, I start looking in book stores. This year I did something different: I searched for Erdman at amazon.com. Sure enough, he'd written a new book which I ordered immediately. The several days it took to arrive in the mail was an eternity as I anticipated reading a new Erdman. It arrived, and did not disappoint. Erdman remains at the top of his form!

I love financial thrillers and have read most of Paul Erdman's fiction, but this is by far the best. Not only does he expertly take the reader through the world of derivatives investing and international banking, he paints a picture of Switzerland from Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse to the most remote parts of the Alps that makes you long to get on a plane and go there (and I have been there--it's worth it). The plot moves fast, from the point of view of every character; his knowledge of German, Swiss-German and Italian is impeccable, and the story culminates in an around-the-world chase that keeps you from putting the book down. I can't wait for his next one.

Paul Erdman with a Doctorate in Economics has been an International Economist, a practicing Executive, and CEO of a Swiss Bank, in addition to being an accomplished author of a number of bestsellers. He is also a columnist for CBS marketwatch, and a regular writer/contributor on economic and financial matters.

Very often, we citizens get confounded by the happenings in Stockmarkets, Foreign Exchange fluctuations, Interest rate fluctuations, Balance of payments crisis, and many such esoteric matters of hi-finance and economics which have such a deep impact on the life and times of all of us. Reading text books on Applied Economics, Finance etc will not only bore us to death, but will also add to the confusion!

Paul Erdman's books are the best way to learn all this in an entertaining manner. As a qualified economist with practical hands on knowledge of Financial and Economic matters, and his creative abilities of writing good fiction, he weaves very interesting stories which are not only thrillingly entertaining but also very educative.

Though he had written 2 books in 1973 and 74, but his 1976 book "The Crash of 79" made him a celebrity overnight. Erdman has written a number of financial thrillers,and has netted an aggregate of 152 weeks on New York Times best seller lists!

This book 'last days of America' is a chilling tale of how economic crisis could lead to major political upheavals and dangerous shifts in the balance of powers. The book published in 1981 based on political and economic trends then prevailing as well the expected scenario developments outlines a scenario that is really frightening, yet so plausible. Thank God no such thing happened.The story;

Frank Rogers is the President of an American aerospace company CMDS,making cruise missiles among other things, and Herb Patterson is the Chairman. A major missile deal from NATO on which CMDS has bet 750 million dollars in under threat which can put the very survival of CMDS at stake. Frank is commissioned to ensure that CMDS gets the order. Frank reaches Switzerland and ropes in the influential middlemen who can swing deals for a 'consideration'. The deal is worked out at highest levels, monies are spent, but still the deal falls through! CMDS is on the verge of bankruptcy, which was the original master plan of the Politicians who wanted CMDS to sell them the technology of making the special cruise missiles. Will the plan be successful? Will the mighty Government of the US allow this to happen?What happens to Frank who gets caught in the middle and gets victimized as a sacrificial goat? How can one business transaction be used to change the entire global balance of power? Will US allow itself to be humbled?

To know the answers read this very interesting book which has been very well written, has great deal of infotainment, you will just love the style

Paul Erdman with a Doctorate in Economics has been an International Economist, a practicing Executive, and CEO of a Swiss Bank, in addition to being an accomplished author of a number of bestsellers. He is also a columnist for CBS marketwatch, and a regular writer/contributor on economic and financial matters.

Very often, we citizens get confounded by the happenings in Stockmarkets, Foreign Exchange fluctuations, Interest rate fluctuations, Balance of payments crisis, and many such esoteric matters of hi-finance and economics which have such a deep impact on the life and times of all of us. Reading text books on Applied Economics, Finance etc will not only bore us to death, but will also add to the confusion!

Paul Erdman's books are the best way to learn all this in an entertaining manner. As a qualified economist with practical hands on knowledge of Financial and Economic matters, and his creative abilities of writing good fiction, he weaves very interesting stories which are not only thrillingly entertaining but also very educative.

Though he had written 2 books in 1973 and 74, but his 1976 book "The Crash of 79" made him a celebrity overnight. Erdman has written a number of financial thrillers,and has netted an aggregate of 152 weeks on New York Times best seller lists!

This book 'last days of America' is a chilling tale of how economic crisis could lead to major political upheavals and dangerous shifts in the balance of powers. The book published in 1981 based on political and economic trends then prevailing as well the expected scenario developments outlines a scenario that is really frightening, yet so plausible. Thank God no such thing happened.The story;

Frank Rogers is the President of an American aerospace company CMDS,making cruise missiles among other things, and Herb Patterson is the Chairman. A major missile deal from NATO on which CMDS has bet 750 million dollars in under threat which can put the very survival of CMDS at stake. Frank is commissioned to ensure that CMDS gets the order. Frank reaches Switzerland and ropes in the influential middlemen who can swing deals for a 'consideration'. The deal is worked out at highest levels, monies are spent, but still the deal falls through! CMDS is on the verge of bankruptcy, which was the original master plan of the Politicians who wanted CMDS to sell them the technology of making the special cruise missiles. Will the plan be successful? Will the mighty Government of the US allow this to happen?What happens to Frank who gets caught in the middle and gets victimized as a sacrificial goat? How can one business transaction be used to change the entire global balance of power? Will US allow itself to be humbled?

To know the answers read this very interesting book which has been very well written, has great deal of infotainment, you will just love the style of Paul Erdman!

The Silver Bears is a hilarious story and entertaining story of intrigue about an attempt to corner the silver market, with a few too many players. Having read it twice (actually having heard a full-length audio version), I'm still a little vague about some of the intrigue.

The only panic I felt was how to put he book down fast enough. I should not try and read these types of books because I never seem to really enjoy them, but this book just did not turn me on. It was like the author took the characters from Wall Street and gave them narcotics. It just was a slow book.

Paul Erdman is to finance what John Grisham is to law. This book is a stunning page-turner. It was the first of Erdman's books that I read and it got me hooked; since then I have made it through most of the rest of his books. (The only one I liked better was "Zero Coupon".)

This plot (I use the word loosely here) had more holes in it then the cheese from the same country. Ok so the details are correct, the only reason I kept plodding through this one, and it is just that he did not use the details to any great effect. The writing here was very forced and not fresh, almost like a bad high school history book. I have heard some good things about this author but I either picked up the wrong book or there are some people that have some explaining to do to me. Where do I go to get a refund?

I'm a big fan of Erdman and recently got all the books I have not read yet by Erdman. This is the worst book I have read by Erdman. I guess if you are fascinated by WWII history and like reading a history book versus a novel, then this book may be for you. Erdman usually mixes in the appropriate amount of historical detail in his books, but he mixed in too much in this book.

Erdman is a man of many talents. But it seems like his fictional writing talents were diluted in order to make room for some pinches of historical data. It's not a ponderous read nor a fact-o-rama. In fact, he does do a good job keeping everything fairly easy and balanced for the reader. It's just that he usually does better.